Fine of the Month: August 2011

(David Carpenter)

1. Magna Carta 1253: new light on the negotiations and the ambitions of the church

Following on from his discussion of Stephen Langton, archbishop of Canterbury, and the
1215 Magna Carta, here David Carpenter discusses the role of Robert Grosseteste, bishop
of Lincoln, and the church more widely, in the 1253 confirmation of Magna
Carta.

⁋1Occasionally in this series a Fine of the Month has been devoted to a new discovery not
directly derived from the fine rolls, although the fine rolls have usually provided some
evidence related to it. Such is the case with this month’s contribution. It lays for the
first time before the public a letter of King Henry III which supplies a missing link in
the negotiations leading to the 1253 confirmation of Magna Carta. The letter also puts
that confirmation into a sharper perspective, and confirms (as Christopher Cheney
suspected but could not prove) that the church achieved far less in 1253 than it had
hoped.1 As a coda, the fine rolls themselves
come into play with some evidence related to Robert Grosseteste, bishop of Lincoln, and
the schedule he drew up setting out the grievances of the church.

⁋2The charter which Henry agreed in May 1253 was, of course, the final and definitive
version of Magna Carta, which he had issued back in 1225, and confirmed in 1237. Both
the 1225 Charter and its 1237 confirmation had been supported by sentences of
excommunication pronounced against anyone who contravened their terms. The same was true
in 1253. Indeed it was the solemnity of the sentences and the efforts made to publicise
and enforce them which made the 1253 confirmation seem so special. The ceremony took
place on 13 May 1253 in the great hall of Westminster in the presence of the king, five
earls and a great many other nobles. The sentence was pronounced by the archbishop of
Canterbury and thirteen other bishops. As the candles were thrown down, the king (this
according to Matthew Paris who was probably present), held his right hand to his breast
and cried out ‘As God helps me, I will keep all these things faithfully, as I am a
knight and as I am a crowned and anointed king’.2

⁋3The record of the excommunication made by the church was widely distributed and
preserved.3 The sentence
itself, by order of the bishops, was published in parish churches on Sundays and
festival days, accompanied by the burning of candles and the ringing of bells. In his
Lincoln diocese, Grosseteste was particularly active in the cause and had clergy
fulminate the sentence with crosses and handbells in secular
courts.4 Next year, the pope, at the request of the English
bishops, confirmed the sentence, and it was distributed again, with orders that it being
proclaimed both in English and in French.5 This, of course, foreshadowed the proclamations
in English and French of the secular reforms of 1258.

⁋4The clergy, therefore, made gigantic efforts to publicise and enforce the 1253
confirmation of Magna Carta. Behind their activity lay something which historians have
never really appreciated, or at least never really stressed. This is that the church,
although certainly with lay support, was the driving force behind the 1253 confirmation
in the first place. So much emerges quite clearly from Matthew Paris’s account of the
negotiations across several assemblies.6 It is completely understandable. The church had both a motive
and a lever which the laity simply lacked. The secular tax which Henry obtained in 1253
was pretty insignificant. It came in the form of a ‘feudal aid’ of 3 marks on each
knight’s fee for the knighting of his eldest son. Since such an aid was one of those
permitted the king in the 1215 Magna Carta, Henry could, in law, simply have demanded it
without any negotiations, all the more so since the yield was likely to be comparatively
small; in the event it hardly reached £6000.7 This was not
something for which Henry would make major concessions. The tax Henry was demanding from
the church was totally different. It took the form of a tenth of ecclesiastical revenues
for three years to support his crusade. Although sanctioned by the pope, Henry accepted
that the levy needed the consent of the English church. He also knew, like everyone
else, that it would produce money on a vastly different scale from the feudal aid. In
the event it probably did produce over £40,000.8

⁋5At the parliaments and other assemblies of 1252 and 1253, the prelates resisted the tax
and complained about Henry’s government in general and his treatment of the church in
particular. They pressed for the confirmation of the Charter and they also ventilated a
whole series of other grievances, as our newly discovered letter helps to show. In
January 1253 a council of the Canterbury province met in London. Its first task was to
settle the violent dispute which had erupted between the queen’s uncle, Boniface of
Savoy, archbishop of Canterbury, and the king’s half brother, Aymer de Lusignan, bishop
elect of Winchester. Henry, staying at Windsor, declared that the prelates were not to
leave London, and he would not come there, until this had been achieved. In fact, a
settlement was soon arranged and the prelates then turned to the question of the tax.
After much debate, they agreed that if the king ceased to oppress the church, they would
give their consent to it. Henry’s reply, as it had not been at earlier gatherings, was
conciliatory. He asked them ‘to write down secretly the articles of offence’ so that he
could emend them; and he appointed a day when he could reform everything ‘by common
counsel’.

⁋6All of this is from Matthew Paris and the chronicle of his fellow Saint Albans monk,
John of Wallingford.9
Cheney, on the basis of their testimony, observed that ‘if, as was intended in January,
the clergy presented articles of complaint to the king and asked for redress of specific
grievances, the result [in the confirmation of Magna Carta] fell far short of their
hopes’.10 What the new letter
shows is that present articles to the king, the clergy most certainly did. The letter,
addressed to the barons of the exchequer, was sent by Henry III from Merton (he was
evidently staying at the priory) on 10 February 1253. It was not placed onto the close
rolls, and is known because the exchequer copied it onto their memoranda
rolls.11 These, of course, have never been printed, hence the way
letter has remained unknown. The letter shows that the king took the complaints very
seriously. He sent the ‘rolls’ containing them to the exchequer and asked its advice on
what to do. He also fixed the quindene of Easter as the day on which he would consider
the issues raised with his magnates.

⁋7In translation the letter runs as follows:

⁋8Writ of the lord king on behalf of the king. [In the margin].

⁋9King to the barons [of the exchequer.]

⁋10We are sending you the rolls which the venerable father B[oniface] archbishop of
Canterbury and his suffragans lately delivered to us inscribed. Although to several of
the things there, we could have replied by ourselves, and have expedited several of
their contents without injury to anyone, however, wishing to have discussion on these
things with our beloved brother, Richard earl of Cornwall, and certain other of our
magnates, and with you, and to enjoy in this matter their and your counsel, we have
fixed for the foresaid archbishop and his suffragans a day on the quindene of Easter
next coming at Westminster to reply to them on the foresaid things and do what will be
just and reasonable by means of your counsel and that of the foresaid magnates.

⁋11Wherefore, we order you that, since there are many things contained in them [the rolls]
which specially touch our state and that of our kingdom and our subjects, having
diligently inspected and understood these things, you should meanwhile give us careful
counsel as to what to do on these matters.12

⁋12Witness myself at Merton, on the tenth day of February, in the year of our reign thirty
seven.

⁋13The rolls which Archbishop Boniface gave to the king do not survive, but their contents
are fairly clear from contemporary schedules of grievance. Cheney thought that what was
sent might have been coterminous with a surviving list of complaints drawn up by Bishop
Grosseteste, and we may be fairly sure that Grosseteste had a major input into what was
delivered.13 Since,
however, his list only takes up three pages of fairly large modern type, it would have
hardly needed to be conveyed in ‘rolls’. More probably, what was produced was akin to an
amalgam of Grossetete’s list and the lengthy schedule of complaints which the Burton
annalist preserves under the year 1257, and which takes up over nine pages of the same
type.14 In the thinking found in
this material, Henry’s rule was attacked as breaking Magna Carta generally to everyone’s
detriment. As Grosseteste put it, the king hardly observed a single article of the
charters ‘conceded for the peace and tranquillity of the realm’, although governing his
subjects with clemency and lenity was integral to the royal
dignity.15 Henry was
also, in a general way, accused breaking the clause promising freedom of the church in
Magna Carta’s chapter 1.16
Beyond that, however, the detailed clauses in Magna Carta were only referred to twice,
namely with reference to Henry’s treatment of vacant sees and
wills.17 When it came to the way he was challenging ecclesiastical
liberties through quo warranto inquiries, and rules about ‘express mention’ and ‘long
usage’, it was necessary to fall back on the general defence of the church’s freedom in
the Charter’s chapter one.18 When it came to the way he was thought to be encroaching on the powers
of ordination, it was necessary to conjure up John’s charter of 1214, promising freedom
of elections, although this had never been subsequently confirmed.19 For the rest, the Charter offered no
specific protections. Indeed, it was only referred to in six of 67 clauses of the
combined schedules.20

⁋14In 1253, therefore, the church saw the Charter as a symbol of good rule benefiting the
whole realm. In a way too, all its own particular grievances could be seen as embraced
within the promise of ecclesiastical freedom in chapter one. Yet clearly it was
unsatisfactory merely to rely on that. The church had a whole series of complaints which
were not covered by the Charter, and which it now wished to see addressed. Some of the
issues were personal to the king – his appointment of unworthy people to ecclesiastical
office and the way he was extracting hospitality from religious
houses.21 Others raised thorny and fundamental questions about the divide
between ecclesiastical and secular jurisdiction and, by extension, about the whole
relationship between church and state. Thus the clergy complained about the way the
government forced ecclesiastics to appear in the king’s courts in personal actions,
obstructed the processes of excommunication, mistreated criminous clerks, and through a
series of prohibitions inhibited the work of ecclesiastical courts. No wonder Henry said
the demands ‘specially touch our state and that of our kingdom and our subjects’, and
wanted the exchequer’s advice about them.

⁋15Henry had fixed the quindene of Easter (4 May) as the day when his magnates would
gather to consider the church’s claims, and that was indeed when the great parliament at
Westminster opened.22 It
concluded as we have seen on 13 May with the conformation of Magna Carta and the
pronouncing of the sentences of excommunication. The church had achieved some advance on
the confirmation of 1237 since, as we shall see, some detail was offered as to the
processes of excommunication. It could be pleased at the general protection vouchsafed
the realm in the Charter, and the specific protection given by chapter one on the
freedom of the church. Yet the fact remains that it had totally failed to secure any
redress of the detailed grievance set out in the ‘rolls’ prepared by Boniface and his
suffragans. It was precisely to offset the disappointment that it made so much of the
sentences of excommunication. Indeed it made considerably more of them than did the
king, which also reflects the tensions in the lengthy negotiations leading up to the
confirmation of the Charter.

⁋16Two versions were made of the sentence of excommunication. The first, already referred
to, was that of the church and was issued in the name of the bishops. Significantly,
this was never copied onto the chancery rolls.23 The second version, the king’s,
was issued as a letter patent and engrossed on the patent
roll.24 The differences between the two
are quite striking and have never, as far as I know, been appreciated.25 The church’s version omitted entirely the
statement in Henry’s letter that ‘with his own mouth’, he had reserved, during the
sentence of excommunication, ‘the customs and dignities of the kingdom, ancient and
used, and the rights of his crown’. The church’s version also spelled out (as had not
happened in 1237) the ecclesiastical role in the process of excommunication.26 Thus anyone
was to incur the sentence who, having been warned, failed to give full satisfaction
within fifteen days ‘at the decision (arbitrium) of the ordinary’.
Henry’s version, by contrast, made no mention of the ordinary and reserved to the king
the duty of correcting the transgression ‘by consideration of his court’.

⁋17There was also a considerable divergence in the respective lists of delinquencies for
which the sentence would be incurred. The clergy’s version began with threatening all
those who deprived churches of their rights, and contravened ecclesiastical liberties
and the customs of the kingdom, ‘especially’ the liberties in the Charters. It then
included as liable to excommunication ‘all’ who against these liberties ‘draft
[ediderint’] statutes..., introduce customs..., writers of
statutes, as well as counsellors and executors who presume to judge in accordance with
them’. This was an attack both on legislation, which sought to restrict ecclesiastical
jurisdiction, and the judges (the most likely drafters of such legislation), who gave
judgements in accordance with it, as well as introducing other legal rules detrimental
to the church.27 The king’s version, of course, had nothing like this, and sandwiched
reference to those who specifically violated the liberties of the church between the
contravenors of the Charters in general, and those who infringed the rights and
liberties of the king and kingdom. The king’s letter also included an extraordinary
statement which made it very clear that his version was the official one, not the
version of the church.

⁋18‘It is to be known that if in writings on this same sentence, made by anybody, or to be
made, anything is placed, or any other articles are found [than those above], the king
and all the aforesaid magnates and the community of the people, protest publicly in the
presence of Boniface archbishop of Canterbury and all the bishops in the same
colloquium, that they never consented to those things, but plainly contradicted
them’.

⁋19Why then had the grievances contained in the church’s ‘rolls’ not been addressed? Alas
we do not have the reply which the barons of the exchequer gave to Henry’s request for
counsel, but one can well imagine its tone. The king’s judges were probably even more
dismissive and derisive. The whole official establishment would have been behind Henry
in resisting concessions. As for the lay element in parliament, one can well imagine
that it too had limited enthusiasm for giving way to the jurisdictional demands of the
church.28 This was why nothing was done about them subsequently during the period
of reform and rebellion, despite further ecclesiastical councils drawing up long
schedules of grievance. It was by taking part in the general politics of the realm that
the Montfortian bishops made their contribution, not by working for the sectional
interests of the church. Occasionally the grievances in the schedules – for example on
prizes, the common summons, and suit of court – were shared with sections of the laity,
but for the most part the church was on its own.29 The issue of suit of court itself
had a mixed message since, as the complaint made clear, the grievance was as much
against the magnates as the king. To some of the demands in the rolls, laymen were
surely downright hostile. They can hardly have welcomed being made to swear oaths so
that prelates could inquire into their moral failings. Indeed, when Henry prohibited
Grosseteste for exacting such oaths, he declared that he was acting on the ‘complaints
of magnates and others of your diocese’.30

⁋20Why then did the church in the end give way and settle for far less than it must have
hoped for when it handed the rolls in to the king? Essentially, the bishops must have
realised that they had taken things as far as they could, and would get no further. The
tax had been sanctioned by the pope. It was also for a cause which everyone had to
respect. As Matthew Paris put it, explaining the capitulation, the bishops did not wish
wholly to frustrate the king’s desire, ‘so pious’, to go on crusade.31 Although it was often said that Henry
had taken the cross simply to get money from his subjects, this could not exactly be the
case when he was to receive nothing until he actually set out. The diversion of the tax
to support the Sicilian venture was still in the future. No one who had contact with
Henry in these years can have doubted his sincerity as a crusader.

⁋21It is natural to wonder whether Henry did anything during the period of negotiation
with the clergy to conciliate the church.32 One
initiative which may be seen in that light is the provision Henry promulgated about the
Jews on 30 January 1253, just at the moment the bishops were putting together their
‘rolls’. Unlike previous royal measures, which had been largely concerned with Jewish
financial dealings, this one was deeply spiritual in its intent. The aim was essentially
to preserve Christians from dangers to their faith through contact with the Jews. The
measure was very personal to Henry. It was described as ‘a provision made by the king’
and was authorised by him and his council. In other words it had not been promulgated by
the common counsel of the realm. Indeed, no bishops were at court when it was
pronounced, although, as we shall see, they had been there a few days
earlier.33 The wider background to
the measure probably lies in Henry’s heightened sensitivity to the Jews given his status
as a crusader. But the precise timing may have been due to his desire, during crucial
negotiations, to remind the church of his credentials as a ‘most Christian king’.

⁋22Henry also did something to conciliate one individual bishop, and this is where the
evidence of the fine rolls comes in. The individual in question was none other than
Robert Grosseteste himself. Grossesteste was a man with a grievance. Some years before,
he had guaranteed the appearance of Master John de La Lade before the justices in eyre
in Buckinghamshire. When Lade failed to show up before the eyre of 1247, Grosseteste was
amerced £100, which he still owed in 1253. £100 seems a large and punitive amount, but
penalties of that size were actually fairly routine for lay and ecclesiastical barons
for offences which came under the general heading of contempt of court. Quite often they
were never paid and were eventually pardoned by the king. Grosseteste himself, as the
fine rolls show, had been pardoned two earlier amercements of £100 for failing to
produce clerks before the justices.34 That the procedure nonetheless rankled with
Grosseteste is shown by his schedule of ecclesiastical grievances to which we have
already referred. There he complained that clerks taken for suspicion of crime were only
transferred to the church for judgement after they had appeared before the justices in
eyre. If they were handed over to the bishop before that, it was only so that he could
produce them before the justices ‘on pain of £100’. The bishop, therefore, had to go to
all the trouble of keeping such people in custody or else ‘for every one handed to him,
he will be in danger of losing £100’. John de La Lade had indeed been accused of a
‘crime’, one which involved robbery with violence against the peace of the king, as the
eyre roll shows.35
Clearly his case, and the earlier ones, inspired Grosseteste’s complaint.

⁋23Grosseteste’s debt in the Lade case was still outstanding in 1253, as we have said. The
moment was ideal to secure its pardon. The bishops opened their synod in London on 13
January. Henry himself arrived at Westminster on or soon after 23 January and on the
twenty-sixth Archbishop Boniface, Grosseteste, and the bishops of London, Salisbury and
Chichester were all at court.36 Probably it was now that Henry suggested they put their grievances in
writing, and in the next few days they must have been very busy at it. By 6 February
when Henry passed their rolls to the exchequer the task was completed. This then was a
time when Henry needed to conciliate the church both to prepare the way for the tax and
soften the demand for concessions in return for it. In particular, it was a time to
conciliate Grosseteste who was a leader of the opposition, and was doubtless to play a
major part in drawing up the rolls of complaint. Grosseteste likewise realised his hour
had come. On or shortly before 26 January he complained to Henry about the £100
amercement, and lo and behold, having consulted his council, Henry freed him from
it.

⁋24We know this from a writ to the exchequer, witnessed by Henry on 26 January, and placed
on the fine rolls. Here, the king declared that he had learnt ‘from the complaint, ex
querela’ of Robert bishop of Lincoln about the penalty, and had now decided that the
£100 should be paid not by the bishop but by John de La Lade instead. This order was
almost immediately cancelled in favour of another, bearing the same date, which provided
more explanation. The king had learnt ‘from others’ (so not just from Grosseteste though
doubtless he had lined ‘the others’ up) that the bishop had not been responsible for
John’s failure to appear, it was down simply to John himself. John, therefore, should
pay the £100 not Grosseteste. The writ containing this longer account was stated to be
authorised by the king and the council.37 Two days later, on 28 January, when
Grosseteste, was again at court in the company of the bishops of London, Worcester,
Salisbury, Chichester and Rochester, Henry pardoned him another amercement, one of 20
marks imposed for failing to appear before the justices in eyre when they were last in
Oxford. Grosseteste, it was now said, was with the king himself by his order at the
time.38

⁋25Henry’s concessions hardly amounted to the whopping bribe by which his father tried to
compromise Archbishop Langton in the run up to Magna Carta, the subject of the November
2010 Fine of the Month.39 But then Henry
did few things on his father’s scale. It does show, however, that Henry had a sure eye
for the bishop he most needed to pick off. No other English prelate received such
treatment at this time.40 It equally shows Grosseteste had a sure eye for
the best moment to wring a concession from the king. Whether his success did anything to
draw the sting from his critique of royal rule we cannot know. Perhaps not, for
Grosseteste was not as other men. In the end, however, for all the rolls of complaint
that Grosseteste helped compile, Henry was able to secure the tax without making any
detailed concessions to the church. Grosseteste, in reaction, busied himself proclaiming
the excommunication in his diocese, but it was a second best. Henry could feel happy
with the settlement. In resisting the jurisdictional claims of the church, he had been
at one with his ‘magnates and the community of the people’. If only he could have
achieved such unity more often.

Paris, Chronica Majora, v,
324-8, 330-3, 359-61, 373-8. For the power of churchmen in parliament see, J. R.
Maddicott, The Origins of the English Parliament 924-1327 (Oxford,
2010), pp.192-4. Back to context...

7.

S. K. Mitchell, Studies in
Taxation under John and Henry III, (1914), p.257. Back to context...

8.

W. E. Lunt, Financial
Relations of the Papacy with England, (1962) i, p. 289, and pp.255-90 for
the tax in general. All the money went eventually to the pope to pay for Henry’s
Sicilian enterprise. Back to context...

9.

Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, v, 358-61; R.
Vaughan, ‘The chronicle of John of Wallingford’, English Historical
Review, lxxiii (1958), 72; Chronica Johannis de Oxenedes, ed.
H. Ellis (Rolls ser., 1859), 175-6 (which here is from Wallingford’s chronicle);
Councils and Synods, i, 467-9. I will be discussing the relationship
between Paris and John of Wallingford in a forthcoming paper on Matthew Paris. Back to context...

TNA/PRO E 368, m.8. The image may be found at http://aalt.law.uh.edu/aalt1/H3/E368no27/aE368no27fronts/IMG_4620.htm. The
exchequer had two memoranda rolls one kept by the lord treasurer’s remembrancer (E 368
series) and one by the king’s remembrancer (E 159 series). There is no E 159 roll
corresponding to E 368/27 but there is a second roll for the year catalogued as E
368/28. Presumably either E E68/27 or E 368/28 belongs in fact to the E 159 series.
The two series overlap largely but not entirely. I cannot find the letter on E 368/28
but it is damaged. Back to context...

12.

I have given a free translation of this
sentence. The paragraphs are mine. The Latin text is printed at the end of this
paper. Back to context...

Foedera, I, i, 289;
Councils and Synods, i, 477-8. It was issued in the name of the
archbishop of Canterbury and thirteen other bishops. Their seals were said to be
attached to the document, although the original at Wells only has four seal tags:
Councils and Synods, i, 477. Back to context...

The church’s
letter said the sentence was promulgated before the king, and the earls of Cornwall,
Norfolk, Hereford, Oxford and Warwick. The king’s letter says that the sentence was
agreed by the king, the earls of Norfolk, Hereford, Warwick and Peter of Savoy. The
inclusion of Peter of Savoy in the letter is what one would expect from the king. The
omission of the earl of Cornwall is puzzling especially as the king said, in his
letter of February, that he wished to take his counsel. I know of no other evidence to
suggest that Richard would have been more sympathetic to the church’s version of the
excommunication than the king’s. Back to context...

26.

Am I
right in thinking that there is no official version, from king or clergy, of the 1237
excommunication? Perhaps none was made although the ceremony was widely remembered:
Paris, Chronica Majora, iii, 382-4; iv, 366; Tewkesbury, Annales
Monastici, i, 103-4; CChR, 1226-57, 225-6. Back to context...

This not in any way to deny that the clergy stood shoulder to shoulder
with laymen in parliament when it came to resisting the oppressive side of the king’s
secular rule. See Maddicott, The Origins of the English Parliament,
194-8. Back to context...

Councils and Synods, 470,
cap.8, 541, cap.9; CR, 1251-3, 224-5. For the king declaring that the
efforts of Bishop Cantilupe of Worcester to take oaths from laymen for inquisitions
was not merely against the custom of the kingdom and the royal dignity, but likely to
generate scandal and division amongst the people, see CR, 1247-51,
554. Back to context...

CFR 1252-3, nos.324, 333 where the
translation has yet to be edited. The £100 amercement in the Lade case does not appear
in the initial accounts for the eyre on the pipe roll of 1248: TNA/PRO E 372/ 92,
m.10d. I have not searched for it further. For the other two amercements, see
CFR 1247-8, no.584; CFR 1248-9, no.522. Back to context...

35.

The case appears in the crown pleas section of the
Buckinghamshire eyre (TNA/PRO, Just / 56, m.35) and is a bizarre one. Isabel de
Albigny accused Nicholas and Humphrey of Bassingbourne, together with Master John de
La Lade and others, of entering her house in Lathbury, breaking down the door of her
chamber and stealing a ‘terteletum’ (apparently a cake or tart) to the value of one
mark. They had done this in felony, in robbery, by force and against the peace. Master
John did indeed not turn up. It was testified that he had been handed to Matthew
archdeacon of Buckingham who had sought him in place of the bishop and who was to
produce him before the justices. ‘And now he does not have him so the bishop is in
mercy’. A jury acquitted Nicholas of Bassingbourn but convicted Humphrey and several
others. Humphrey fined in 40s for the transgression. For the image of the roll: http://aalt.law.uh.edu/AALT4/JUST1/JUST1no56/aJUST1no56fronts/IMG_0933.htm. Back to context...

On 31 January, the king and council pardoned the bishop of
St David’s (who was present at the later excommunication) 250 marks arising from
various penalties: CFR 1252-3, no.356. During the May 1253 parliament,
Henry conceded to Archbishop Boniface a market charter for Wadhurst in Sussex:
CChR, 1226-57, 432. There is nothing about this on the fine rolls
which suggests it was conceded free of charge. The charter is now in the East Sussex
Record Office: ESRO P498/3/7. Back to context...